QJ.NET reviews Soldier Front

With a passion for trying out every game that comes across our paths, we at QJ.NET went through a few skirmishes in developer DragonFly‘s Soldier Front on ijji, a Western portal for free games. It’s a first-person shooter that shamelessly takes cues from Counter-Strike down to the core, but if you’re itching to get a hand on the trigger to shoot other players online without having to pay money, Soldier Front may be worth a try. Find out why by reading our review at the full article.

Originally posted on February 22, 2008 at 1:32 p.m.

When you’re bored and looking for a free online game that’s easy to pick up and play, ijji.com is a good place to visit. Just recently, we picked up developer DragonFly‘s Soldier Front on the ijji game portal by Korea“>NHN USA, to take a quick break after investing time in eye-bleeding first-person shooters. To cut the real deal short, we weren’t very impressed. But free gaming is still good, right?

Looking back, Soldier Front suffered from numerous glitches early in its life, yet subsequent patches didn’t really help in turning the game into a shining shooter. It went online in 2006 and reached the west in 2007, but no major changes occurred. The streets are still littered with “glitchers,” lag shots have remained long enough to be a crucial factor, and grenades haven’t evolved to being convincingly powerful.

Subsequent research reveals that the game could have been available in Korea as early as 2004, though copyright information does confirm that the game was officially published in 2006 by Korea-based DragonFly.  One would think that this may be the reason why the graphics aren’t up to par with shooters today, but you will adore the shooter for being playable on older computers, especially those solid Pentium III rigs you have lying about.

If you’re not very picky about things you don’t pay for and not too gung-ho on detailed military weaponry, Soldier Front can provide some fun. After all, it’s no simulation – it’s a MMO fragfest.

Despite its glitches and poorly designed levels, the fact that it’s free and easy to jump into makes the game attractive. Character progression doesn’t require players to visit the item mall, and you can customize your person the moment you login with enough credits called SP to pick a main weapon, a pistol, and grenades.

Customization begins when you get to choose your colors, whether it be the American Delta Force, French GIGN, German GSG 9, South Korean KSF, British SAS, or Russian Spetsnaz, among other special forces. Knowing that our choice will be purely for aesthetics, we enlisted with the French.

Weapons include your typical military arsenal of assault rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, and sub-machine guns. On the side are pistols and revolvers while frag grenades, flashbangs, and smoke grenades come as very useful extras.

You have to choose carefully right at the start when you can only afford one main weapon, because you’ll stick with that virtually all the time during your first matches. Pulling out a pistol is as smart as using hand gestures to call for back-up while under heavy fire since those sidearms don’t pack a punch. Then again, death happens quick so clip capacity of your main gun is often not a problem.

In such a fast-paced game with intermittent lag spikes, extra bullets loaded in your handgun don’t really make you feel any more secure. Fortunately, there’s good variety of the big boys including the FAMAS, AK-74, and M4A1.

Developer DragonFly did attempt to employ somewhat realistic characteristics of these guns, but it fell flat for the most parts – M4A1 being a mediocre long-range selection made many of us here at QJ.NET scratch our heads. Weapons deteriorate over time and you’ll have to repair them to regain performance, though this element is nothing to worry about.

Grenades of different types can decide who kills or gets killed in an instant. Just like the classic Counter-Strike, frags can deal serious damage up close, flashbangs open up opportunities for surprise attacks especially when used in tight rooms, and smokes provide ample cover if you need to charge at snipers or other threatening ranged killers.

Having three types of functional grenades may sound promising on paper, but when you jump into the action, it seems grenades don’t pop like the real deal and there are no indicators when one is nearby so you’ll never know what hit you until you’re dead.

Soldier Front has your typical deathmatch of up to 16 players and team battles in which opposing groups fight for a certain number of round victories. Not much to see here, even if training mode (you get to shoot wooden targets) and “no sniper” mode are available as toppings.

While several objectives can make you feel like each mission is slightly different from another, nothing offers fresh experiences. You’ll be doing a lot of running and shooting to win. And sometimes, just shooting is enough.

One team battle mode puts a team in a bombing operation as the other attempts to prevent the advance, and there’s also something disguised as “The Dual Operation” but is basically a Capture the Flag match. In “The Flee Operation,” teams have to reach “safe zones” to win, but these often end by elimination.

Level design in Soldier Front, even in 2004 standards, is not very exciting. Campers will be happy since there are many corners to hide in, but “rushing” is made possible because maps are quite straightforward. Seasoned Soldier Front warriors also only pick popular maps like Shanghai, so we were hard-pressed on exploring every nook and cranny.

While free, game portal ijji – an English equivalent of the Korean game portal Hangame – offers players special items purchasable by real money. Spending actual dough can earn you access to VIP room hosting, alternate crosshairs, increased SP gain, and even colored names. Offerings last from three to 90 days except for those single-use items that reset information such as kill/death ratios and desertion/team kill history.

Soldier Front provided us limited fun, and we were not compelled to buy “G coins” just for cosmetic changes or bonus SP. Controls are very basic, conventional, and functional, but other mechanics ruin whatever you can hope for from what’s touted to be a realistic FPS RPG.

Variety of weapons is present, but all fall under the “sprayer” and “burst” categories so we’re just talking about a change in gun models. In other words, all you have to think about is whether your main weapon is effective if you shoot like crazy or fire at a slower rate. Hearing gunfire is in no way fun, because sound effects are weak in this game.

If all you’re in the mood for is a simple and free online shooter with a fun-loving community where you’ll find lots of people who openly call others “noobs” and “glitchers” without trying to cause harm, Soldier Front might be worth a try.

Originally posted on February 22, 2008 at 1:32 p.m.